Why did Lawrence of Arabia make up the story about the time Turkish soldiers forcefully went up into him?

Why would anyone make up that story?

Errr - one answer is that he didn't, OP.

Blond hair, blue eyes, pink hole... those barbarians ran a 'train' on him.

15 years ago a young historian named James Barr claimed this based on a letter Lawrence wrote on the 14th of November saying he was staying the town of Azraq for "a few days". The rape happened in the town Deraa on the 20th of November, so Barr concluded that, given Lawrence's homosexuality, he must have made it all up in a fit of sado-masochistic fantasy.

Nevermind that there is no evidence of where Lawrence was on the 20th, which would be consistent with being imprisoned without record, as he claimed, and nevermind that what Lawrence described was extremely typical of Turkish torture methods.

Of course, because he was a big homo and because we must NEVER allow Muslims to be described in anything but glowing terms, and because a young historian was trying to get funding, we must all believe Lawrence was lying.

He made it up because he didn't look like Peter O'Toole. Even Turkish soldiers had standards.

It was “rape rape”.

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

[quote] Even Turkish soldiers had standards.

Lawrence might still have been better looking than the hot babes waiting at home.

The Circassian women (and Turkish women) are known for being beautiful #8.

Lawrence was an oddball. I think about the veracity of the story is that we will never know. It could go either way.

[quote] The rape happened in the town Deraa on the 20th of November

If I were posted to the dark side of the moon I could not be more isolated

But evidence uncovered by James Barr, author of Setting the Desert on Fire: T.E. Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia 1916-1918

Sounds like an objective source…..

[quote] he was a big homo

No, he was a celibate ascetic.

What about Florence of Arabia?

R14 = Noel Coward

Because it was his fantasy about being ravished by hot Turks!

"Darling, you cannot Rape a townie."

[quote] It eludes me why he would think of such a thing.

You might be more sympathetic to Lawrence's thoughts if you were an illegitimate Englishman living in the pre-Freudian 19th century.

The OP has given us a flattering picture but his puny body looked anemic and he was as tall as a toadstool.

Any reason to be able to use the phrase “go up into the man.” Lol 🙄

I suggest you cease your amateur-psychologising until you've read the 400 pages or so pages of his memoir.

R12, read R4. Barr did not prove anything; he tried to interprete known evidence to suggest l of A was lying/fantasising, but, as R4 noted, didn't actually disprove him at all.

Bump

"Florence of Arabia" was season 2 of Alice.

R24, are you also R14?

Lawrence of my Labia?

[quote]No, he was a celibate ascetic.

There's no reason to think so, R13.

Lawrence also kept a houseboy, Selim "Dahoum" Ahmed, from the age of fourteen on up. The two were believed to be intimate.

They were just platonic dudebros who cruised for chicks together, r27!

[wuote] age of fourteen on up

I find the “on up” problematic.

Hot Lawrence lookalike.

[quote] The two were believed to be intimate.

Imaginary, unknown, illusory, fake, anonymous people believed this.

Gertrude Bell was a much more interesting person then Lawrence, though her movie, starring Nicole Kidman, was a hot mess. She probably got raped somewhere along the way too.

BRB booking my trip to Turkey…

I thought it was Priscilla?

Lets ask Lens Made-up-rape-story Dunham!

Or, Mattress Girl! She got a B.A. out of her fiction AND got to Scissor with a Senator.

There is conjecture surrounding his death. The two boys he swerved (on his motorcycle) to avoid hitting swore to their dying day that a car pulled out of nowhere, forcing Lawrence to crash. BBC later interviewed them in about the 1960s, much later on. Many believe MI5 or MI6 were to blame, as Lawrence continued to speak out against the unfair treatment of the bedouins after the Brits had promised them land (the Sykes Picot Agreement) in exchange for helping out w the guerilla warfare in the desert. He was vocal in high circles following the War and, let’s face it, a gay man (albeit Oxford educated) spouting off truths to those in power doesn’t always fly. They took a flyer on this oddball and he pulled off a miracle. They never banked on that.

[quote] There is conjecture surrounding his death.

There is conjecture surrounding his life. Most of it is balderdash.

R35 and r36 must be Republicans who bash the #metoo movement but support QAnon...

R39 must be the anonymous person who observed the rape with his own eyes back in 1917.

Where was his crash site? What's there now? A memorial? Show us!

I'm a registered Dem.

AND Lens Dunham made up a rape story and had to retract it.

Fuck you, stupid cunt.

R41 Wiki has the crash site.

Holy shit. My husband and I were watching this last night but stopped at intermission. He gets raped? Holy shit! And I didn't know they had quicksand in the dessert, I thought that was in the jungle or something. Now I'm stressed about part two.

R42, doesn't mean she was lying. I remember when she first came forward, she didn't even name names but then a guy came forward and said it was supposed to be about him....way to tell on yourself, dude.

Bill Cosby sued his victims. People can file bogus lawsuits to save face

Oh honey. Yes Lens Dunham is a paragon of honest autobiography.

R46, look up the guy who claimed she was talking about him. Not exactly a paragon of anything....

R4 .Nothing more tiresome then a revisionist trying to hawk a book.

R28 - they were the Matt and Nestor Gaetz of their time!

Better yet, r33, go to Deraa! It’s beautiful this time of year!

[quote]And I didn't know they had quicksand in the dessert.

R44 Gurl, what restaurant do you go to?

[quote]No, he was a celibate ascetic.

In other words, a piggy bottom.

Ascetic

Ascetic people impose severe self-discipline onto themselves. They abstain from indulgence and they can force themselves to go through physical hardship.

Ascetic people are an antithesis to 21st century frivolous American pleasure-seeking hedonism.

R53 Here we go again. Only Americans seek indulgence of hedonistic pleasure. The rest of the world are all celibate monks and holy virgins. 🙄 Fuck off with your America vs. the World shit narrative. It's really tiring.

And Kim Kardashian is NOT American!

@ R41

Death in Dorset

^ That link has a tiny exterior picture of his ascetic tiny cottage he named as 'Clouds Hill'.

There must be interior shots of the cottage somewhere.

But I heard an aesthete (Brian Sewell, perhaps) declare that the tiny interior must have been designed by the machinating Mrs. Beaver (from Evelyn Waugh's tragic-comedy)

Damn I’d like a few hot young Turkish guys to work over my hole. Lawerence of Gangbangia had the right idea. Git it girl.

Wait, are saying he was forced to present pink white hole to ravaging Turks?

OK, I'll take my lotion and my tissue to my bedroom and think about it.

turl

I have no idea what "turl" means nor how it ended up in my post.

[quote]Better yet, go to Deraa! It’s beautiful this time of year!

No, it's not - it's a boil on the backside of hell.

My travel agent says I may have to take a donkey part of the way...

But Mama's mussy...well "Needs Must"...

Sure ain't seeing no action stateside....

[quote]Of course, because he was a big homo and because we must NEVER allow Muslims to be described in anything but glowing terms, and because a young historian was trying to get funding, we must all believe Lawrence was lying.

It has absolutely nothing to do with "we must NEVER allow Muslims to be described in anything but glowing terms," you big troll. People have been questioning Lawrence's story for decades, including back when people routinely described Muslims as savage non-humans. Painting him as a liar was almost entirely about homophobia and preserving the status quo.

[quote] My husband and I were watching this last night but stopped at intermission. He gets raped?

The drunken actor in the film supposedly gets raped again in a film soon after this.

We finished the movie last night. I didn't get it. Was it about him teaching the Arabs how to fight in a modern world? Was it about him letting himself become a savage? I did catch the Dark Side of the Moon quote someone posted upthread. I don't know if I would have known he was raped (when he was whipped) if someone hadn't mentioned it. We (husband and self) thought it was pretty clear that he was playing a gay guy. Can someone explain why this movie is so famous?

The British Film Institue put out a series of books about individual film R64, this would probably be your best bet at through answers.

It's a movie that doesn't translate well to the small screen, r64.

R60, it's a sidestreet in Oxford, very pretty and unspoiled. Jesus College, the Oxford college where Lawrence lived and studied, is on Turl: its charming dormers and gables were probably witness to many of his undergrad fantasies about Turks ravaging his pink white hole, before they actually did (or didn't). So there's you explanation. Have fun!

But why would anyone think it didn't happen? Of course men are rapists. Most men are potential rapists. If they don't have women around to rape they're going to rape men. I don't see why this is even a question.

[quote] Why did Lawrence of Arabia make up the story about the time Turkish soldiers forcefully went up into him?

You obviously haven't read the book. There's no anal penetration in the book.

R64, Lawrence was a legend in his time--mostly due to the journalist who photographed him and romanticized his contributions. Many people who were young during WWI were fixated on how great he was, so the film was aimed at that generation. The film is pretty obvious about Lawrence and Ali (played by Sharif). It was a love affair and Lawrence dedicated his book to Ali. He was a complex man, born a 'bastard,' which was a BIG DEAL in those days. He may have lied a bit or not. The film is romantic and ambiguous. I don't regard it as history.

It’s not rape if the bottom wants it and smiles with each load.

[quote] Why did Lawrence of Arabia make up the story

Don't expect soldiers to be honest and tell the truth. All is fair in love and war.

Lawrence never spoke of this!!! There was a highly confidential file where Lawrence described his torture which went missing. It was a common punishment for Arabs to gang rape British officers as a form of degradation and dominance. They raped every high ranking officer they captured. Lawrence's file disappeared, but you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he was raped in the same way ALL officers who were prisoners got raped!

Lawrence sunk into a deep depression after he came home and drank himself to death. His brother destroyed his memoirs. Historians then made assumptions that A+B=C and the rumors started that Lawrence was a closeted Homo or was raped and liked it-- yadda yadda. No evidence exists.

But I believe he was raped and ejaculated during it and it confused him.

For laughs, read Chris Buckley's book.

[quote]Lawrence was a legend in his time--mostly due to the journalist who photographed him and romanticized his contributions.

That would be Lowell Thomas, whose book With Laurence in Arabia was a massive bestseller in the 1920s. Thomas also made a fortune from his lecture tours about Lawrence, replete with silent filmed segments. He made a star of Lawrence and Lawrence made Thomas a rich man.

The producers of the film licensed the rights to the book but the film was mostly based on other sources.

^ Lawrence, not Laurence. Sorry.

Can someone write something smart that ties this movie into the current situation in Afghanastan?

To know everything about Lawrence you only have to look at his fucking bedroom at Clouds Hill with its leather bed.

AND the Henry Scott Tuke of him in the music room. Nothing more need to be said! Leather bed. Friend of Tuke. Case closed.

I always think in terms of historical gay figures Henry Morton Stanley would have been hotter sex than Lawrence. I like a scarred face and a small tight muscular body!

He was joking! Such a prankster. That’s why they called him Tee Hee Lawrence.

Did D.H. Lawrence and T.E. Lawrence ever meet? Were they related? Did they fuck like the nude wrestling scene like in Woman in Love?

Yes, R82. Yes they did.

But they were both pocket gays. It wasn't like in Larry Kramer's film with those big hairy beasts.

[quote] Can someone explain why this movie is so famous?

It is a well-made film.

It was made before the days of digital trickery.

It tells a big story telling about The Arab Revolt and it attempts an intimate story (perhaps less successfully) about one man's fastidious, ascetic turmoil while doing his duty to two masters.

The US Library of Congress selected it for preservation as it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

I have watched it on the big screen over 15 times over the decades.

R70 I agree Lawrence 'may have lied a bit' but I'm not sure about your suggestion that he dedicated his book to an Ali. My edition is the 700-page Jonathon Cape edition of 1940 and its dedication is to an 'S.A.'.

The movie's 'Sherif Ali of the Harith' (originally intended for Horst Buchholz and eventually played by Omar Sharif) was an amalgam of many characters.

Lawrence praises an 'Ali ibn el Hussein of the Harith' in Chapter 79 of his book—

[quote] The mixed natures in him made of his face and body powerful pleadings, carnal, perhaps, except in so far as they were transfused by character. No one could see him without the desire to see him again; especially when he smiled… His beauty was a conscious weapon... Fortune had added physical perfection and unusual grace, but these qualities were only just were only the just expression of his powers... But as ever the bubbling laugh would shriek out of him unawares; and the youth, boyish or girlish, of him, the fire and deviltry would break through his night like a sunrise.

I watched a rather cheap and melodramatic 80s adaptation of Franz Werfel's classic novel of the Armenian genocide, "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh", and they added in a scene (which is not in the novel) where the protagonist's white young son, before being killed after his capture by the Turks, is tied down to the Turkish general's bed to be raped. (The camera zooms in endlessly on the crying, helplessly struggling boy in anticipation of the rape, and you don't know if it's lurid agitprop or pervy titillation.)

Why would Lawrence make up shit, especially like this? Some young whippersnapper academic wants to make a mark and says maybe, applying some retro analysis. It doesn't ring true nor is as interesting as Lawrence's own account.

So let me get this right, he was a faggot?

Part of the confusion about this incident is that Lawrence is known to have paid men to birch him and perform other acts of S&M. Perhaps Lawrence heard rumors of gang rape and had a fantasy of it happening to him? Perhaps it did happen? Who knows…

Here's the scene in question:

R91 This is an entire movie, not a scene.

R92

The link was supposed to take you there directly, but I guess that didn't work out; it's at the 2h8m mark.

R90 perhaps? Maybe? Perhaps it was a dream? Maybe? Perhaps it was not a Turk? Maybe it was an arab? Perhaps. Maybe. The perhaps-maybes are limitless. Absurd. But to what end?

I don't understand why this is being questioned. Go read the thread about the Taliban guys raping girls and the other Afghanis raping boys. They are rapists. Yes, a lot of Western guys are rapist, but it seems like almost all the middle eastern guys are rapist. Of course it happened.

He was a power bottom right?

The English are about rum, sodomy and the lash, as Churchill said about their navy. Applies well to Lawrence.

R97 What the hell navy would be in the middle of a desert?

You substitute rum for sherbet, silly.

Seriously though, what is the best book about Lawrence?

[quote]To know everything about Lawrence you only have to look at his fucking bedroom at Clouds Hill with its leather bed.

It's a leather bedspread.

R100, his own: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Not strictly to be trusted, but a masterpiece.

[quote]We finished the movie last night. I didn't get it. Was it about him teaching the Arabs how to fight in a modern world? Was it about him letting himself become a savage?

It was a biography of a well known historical figure. I don't get what you mean, you didn't get it.

[quote]I don't know if I would have known he was raped (when he was whipped) if someone hadn't mentioned it

I knew that when I was 14 and saw this the first time.

This book has letters he wrote to twinks asking them to beat him

[quote]Lawrence sunk into a deep depression after he came home and drank himself to death. His brother destroyed his memoirs.

He didn't die in a motorcycle accident?

R103, you're savvier than I am. Okay, so it was a biography. But there was no grand theme? All that for nothing? I want to feel something. (Other than he should have let the Arabs die out there, and the British should control the entire Middle East.)

[quote] the British should control the entire Middle East.

No, it would have been shared,

The Empire Strikes Back.

About that 40 Days film mentioned and linked above:

Remember that women are for babies and boys are for fun.